Valentino Spring/Summer 2013 Paris Fashion Show: Lovely Roman Holiday

The spring/summer 2013 collection was a sweet display of what its designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli called a “neo-realist Rome” with a “desire for reinvention” that was easy and elegant in cut-out lace and classic A-lines.

You definitely got a swoon-worthy sense of that Roman Holiday in 2013 feel with sheer chiffon, lace, and bib fronts on cute tea-time dresses; the wish to reinvent revealed in precise cutouts that never went overboard.

The first set of doe-eyed models to grace the runway were in soft slip dresses in navy and beige which featured tiny slender eyelets laid out in simple graphic patterns to reveal just enough skin underneath to keep the entire look simultaneously dainty and sensual.

Continuing under this cut out route, they featured again more prominently, only this time in a cluttered confetti format against floral embroidery midway through the show on all white long and short sleeve skirt dresses and shirt dresses with high girly collars that flared out at the waist. It was a spring number we could totally see Zooey Deschanel rolling around in a grass meadow somewhere.

There were two especially high points of the collection: jackets and eveningwear. The jackets were few and far between (which probably added to their impact), but the Valentino red of one trench and the clear raincoat with nude trim added a balanced sense of cool to the overwhelmingly demure designs. With evening wear, they were strong navy, whites, and black floor-length dresses finished with intricate embroidery that miraculously didn’t weigh down the otherwise fragile materials.